Where are the avalanches? Rapid SPOT6 satellite data acquisition to map an extreme avalanche period over the Swiss Alps

Bühler, Yves; Hafner, Elisabeth D.; Zweifel, Benjamin; Zesiger, Mathias; Heisig, Holger

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-13-3225-2019

Articles | Volume 13, issue 12

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-13-3225-2019

© Author(s) 2019. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/tc-13-3225-2019

© Author(s) 2019. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 13, issue 12

Research article

|

04 Dec 2019

Research article |

| 04 Dec 2019

Where are the avalanches? Rapid SPOT6 satellite data acquisition to map an extreme avalanche period over the Swiss Alps

Yves Bühler, Elisabeth D. Hafner, Benjamin Zweifel, Mathias Zesiger, and Holger Heisig

Data sets

SPOT6 Avalanche outlines 24 January 2018 E. Hafner and Y. Bühler https://doi.org/10.16904/envidat.77

Short summary

We manually map 18 737 avalanche outlines based on SPOT6 optical satellite imagery acquired in January 2018. This is the most complete and accurate avalanche documentation of a large avalanche period covering a big part of the Swiss Alps. This unique dataset can be applied for the validation of other remote-sensing-based avalanche-mapping procedures and for updating avalanche databases to improve hazard maps.